LEDs are useful for a thousand things, but no one uses them quite as incredibly as Leo Villareal, an American artist who combines thousands of the little lights to make some seriously otherworldly scenes.

You may remember Villareal for his 40,000 LED hyperspace tunnel at the National Gallery of Art. It remains the closest you'll ever get to light speed.

But the New Mexico native will be displaying all manner of technologically-minded works at his upcoming exhibition at the San Jose Museum of Art, beginning August 21. Here he is talking about his process: